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Waste Water Solution for Non-Municipal Water Systemts

In planning for a 30BBL brewery whioch has no way to tie in to city sewage for waste water. Looking for advice on most effective and cost-efficient septic/ holding tank options from breweries in similar situations. Well and septic only! There is absolutely no option for city-water hookups at the location. Trying not to have to have a service suck our waste water every 2 weeks. That will get expensive. Looking for construction options, septic-safe treatments to accelerate decomposition of organic matter, etc.

We're a 5BBL brewery in an environmentally sensitive area and we've installed our own water treatment plant for the brewery effluent (no sewage) and plan to use our recycled water for irrigation. It's all in place and I've been working with the State Water Quality Resources Board but we're still constructing the irrigation system so I haven't been able to use it yet. It can handle 2400 gallons in a 48-hour period via aerobic digestion, filtration, and sterilization. It's a big investment but it will be worth it once we dial it in. I plan to post about it once we get it on line.

BTW, I do know there are breweries that use septic systems for dispersal. You'll just need to size it accordingly and have enough percolation area to handle the flow.

I'd suggest you try to get in touch with someone at Anderson Valley Brewing. I know they do all their own wastewater treatment on site, offhand they're the only larger craft brewery I can think of that has had to deal with issues like that.

Long Trail in Vermont also has their own wastewater treatment facility (no sewer out there, well water from aquifer the brewery is on.) I too looked into a 30 bll last year, Virginia. There is a guy on here from time to time who lives in Colorado. Specializes in wastewater. Here's essentially what youre up against;
You really need a treatment facility. $200k and a full time guy to run it. In Victor, NY there is a company that has this machine that helps treat the water before it goes down the drain or distribution septic. You sidestream the brewing process, all the solids.

I left Virginia. I didn't want to get into the wastewater treatment business. A brewery is hard enough, especially starting as a 30 because now you need to package and distribute. And if you have no experience in the industry...

Oh... Lickinghole Creek near Richmond... They sidestream and have septic wastewater distribution... They also have 300 acres of land atop a hill. You might call them.

Indian Wells Brewng

I would Contact Indian Wells Brewing in Inyokern, CA.
Their Spring/Water supply is up hill about a 1/4 mile from the brewery and they are on septic/ They make a solid, clean beer in the middle of the desert.
Give them a call

I'd also be curious where you guys ended up if you ever check this thread again. We are currently on a 7 BBL system doing about 1200 BBLs per year and handling our own wastewater. To say that it's a huge PITA even at our size is an understatement.

Revitallizing this thread

We are moving to a new resort area. The landlord has been excellent working with us in planning our move. We have negotiated a large addition to an existing building with 6 apartments on a second floor to house a 3.5 bbl stout system with a few 7bbl tanks for a fair amount of brewing capacity and a new building in 1 year to house a 10bbl system with 6 Ferms and 2 brites.

This will produce a large amount of wastewater and sewage effluent. The resort is under construction so digging is no problem as permits are already aquired.Landlord is installing a new waste wate treatment plant and is concernned about the effluent but is working hand in hand with our brewer to be sure the system will handle it.

The existing building was a laundromat and has 2 septic tanks where the laundry and apartment effluent went to settle before going further to an old sewage plant that is being replaced.

There are 2 options so far on the table. One includes an aerobic system to be installed at our location and then the resulting flow from it will be run into his sewage system.The other would be 2 setting tanks under the building.One tank would be for brewing byproduct that could be pumped clean every 2 weeks by a farmer with a septic tank truck to be sprayed on his farm and he would also take away any side streamed grain waste on a flatbed to feed his pigs(we will do this regardless). The other tank would be for wash down and CIP water and solids for settling before going downstream to where our sewage effluent and effluent from our existing building would tie in.

We both want the best yet most ecconomical solution to this issue. And we only want to do it once.

The brewer has no desire to become a wastewater engineer (he works hard enough as is) and would like to keep the aeration system on the landlords location at the sewage plant.

Can you help us with some insite as to what you fine people have encountered and what you have done.

While I'm still waiting for the State to issue our recycled water permit (it's been over six months since I submitted the 40-page application), I have been using our system to treat the brewery effluent before we send it to the local water company's sewage plant.

Originally Posted by BSBC

This will produce a large amount of wastewater and sewage effluent. The resort is under construction so digging is no problem as permits are already aquired.Landlord is installing a new waste wate treatment plant and is concernned about the effluent but is working hand in hand with our brewer to be sure the system will handle it.

There is a big difference between brewery effluent and sewage. We are a brewpub and only treat our brewery effluent and send the rest of the sewage down the sewer to the local waste-treatment plant. While the brewery effluent has BOD, COD, TDS, TSS, and pH issues, it's not as difficult to deal with these when there is no sewage involved. Our system handles all of the brewery effluent easily and we have no trouble meeting the state's guidelines for above-ground irrigation and the pre-treatment requirements for the local water district's system. There was a bit of a learning curve to getting the system dialed in (hell, all I want to do is brew beer but have now become a water-treatment-plant operator), but now it runs 24/7/365 and I have a set routine that gives us consistently good results when we do our testing.

There are 2 options so far on the table. One includes an aerobic system to be installed at our location and then the resulting flow from it will be run into his sewage system.The other would be 2 setting tanks under the building.One tank would be for brewing byproduct that could be pumped clean every 2 weeks by a farmer with a septic tank truck to be sprayed on his farm and he would also take away any side streamed grain waste on a flatbed to feed his pigs(we will do this regardless).

I'm not familiar with the requirements for effluent to be "sprayed on [a] farm," but it will most likely be illegal to do so. As far as I know, all states are governed by the federal Clean Water Act that was put in place in the early 70s, and there are VERY specific requirements when effluent is used for irrigation. You really need to check into this before getting too committed one way or another. In CA, it's handled by the State Water Quality Resources Board, and they answer directly to the federal government and adhere to those regulations religiously.

The other tank would be for wash down and CIP water and solids for settling before going downstream to where our sewage effluent and effluent from our existing building would tie in.

We haven't had any issues running CIP chemicals and sanitizers through our treatment system. Our first tank is 2400 gallons and there is enough dilution, which I do every morning by adding fresh well water, to ensure the levels of chemicals are well below that which might kill the aerobic bacteria or cause huge pH swings. In fact, we've never had to doctor our pH before releasing the treated effluent. It always comes in around 7, which is neutral.

The brewer has no desire to become a wastewater engineer (he works hard enough as is) and would like to keep the aeration system on the landlords location at the sewage plant.

Well, unless you hire someone expressly for this job your brewer will be the treatment guy. Hiring someone else just adds to the labor overhead. In your case, it might be justified but for our small operation it wasn't. Also, local regs might require the person running it needs to have a treatment operator's license. That's a whole 'nother can o' worms.

Our system:

1.) 2400 gallon collection tank that is connected to the trench drains in the brewery. There is a valve on this line so I can go directly to the sewer and bypass our system if I need to.
2.) Three, 300-gallon aerobic digests connected in series. After the first one fills it dumps into the second which dumps into the third. This gives the effluent an appropriate amount of contact time with the bacteria to lower the BOD substantially.
3.) Coarse (self-cleaning first stage) and fine (down to 5 microns--I remove the filter on a regular basis can hose it off) filtration to remove any remaining solids.
4.) Ozone and UV sterilization.
5.) A 2400 collection tank.

I oversized our system to allow for brewery expansion, which was a good thing since we are expanding our production capacity.

Shoot me a PM and I'll send you my phone number if you'd like to discuss this in real time.

Re: Using brewery wastewater for irrigation - As long as it's pasture land (not for human consumption) and there is no human waste involved, I don't think it's quite as significant an issue as Don makes it out to be, but that could vary by state to state I'm sure.

You guys have implemented/are implementing pretty serious pre-treatment programs when you start talking aerobic digesters, UV treatment, etc. Does this imply that sidestreaming all high strength waste was not considered, and/or not enough to get the BODs you needed? Why are you treating brewery wastewater with UV and ozone anyway, unless you're using it to kill yeast? Did I mis-read this completely, and you are treating *all* of your facility effluent, including septic?